But She's So Contrary

“Our Little Angel,” from 1986’s King of America, contains one of Elvis Costello’s most famous (and in this writer’s opinion, most flat-out brilliant) lyrics: 

If I’m not mistaken, an early reviewer referred to EC as a “singing dictionary” thanks to the density of language and wordplay in his lyrics. He swiped that phrase for the title of his first collection of sheet music, A Singing Dictionary. Then this couplet. 

It’s such a perfect, direct encapsulation of how the world has viewed EC; his music is this revving chainsaw slicing through literate, thoughtful words. Except sometimes the words are the chainsaw, and the music is the…dictionary? The emotional truth is in the melody and chords, and the lyrics push up hard against them, like…well, like a chainsaw. Running through a dictionary. 

It’s a tremendous line but it’s just a simile nested inside the story of “Our Little Angel,” which takes a second-person perspective on a doomed lover who is fated to fall hard for the titular angel. As you might guess, that attraction ends in heartbreak. The phrase “our little angel” suggests an old-fashioned unreasonably protective attitude toward a woman who takes advantage of that protection at every turn. “You’re not going to do a thing to our little angel” sounds like a line of dialogue from an ornery rancher dad threatening a young cowpoke who’s gotten tangled up with his precious little girl. 

Every time I hear a King of America track, I’m impressed again at the lineup of musicians that EC and producer T-Bone Burnett were able to assemble. The legendary James Burton contributes a dobro guitar solo on the bridge that adds an entirely new dimension to the song. It softens the tone; it sounds like a merciful moment for these wayward souls.